Sensory-motor embodied enactivist approaches to perception and consciousness are based on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception — Joshs

If Descarte's Real Self is an “I am,” a being within Being, unwittingly Fabricated and Fictional; and if—standing upon the shoulders of those, like Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger, recognizing the Fiction of a being within yhe being, and resolving it with not a being within, but a disclosing of being, a becoming—Merleau-Ponty took the Real Being all the way to recognizing the Reality of the Body, but never getting over the obstacle of becoming, stopping short at I can.

I think we are heading in the direction of liberating Body from its misplacement; emancipating the Real-so-called-Self, once and for all, from the Fictions of both being within and becoming, and understang that it is not I am, not I can, not “I” anything wherein Being is accessed. Being is just the “is”; and one step more, to be precise, since “is” is an artificial “capturing” of Reality by Language, like a photograph, re-presenting, a construction of the Being within or of the Becoming, Mind; the Real self is just “Is-ing.”

Sensation—seeing, hearing, external feeling/touch, smelling, tasting, internal feeling/mood, image-ing—are is-ing.

Perception, takes sensation and in imperceptible time displaces it with meaning. Not discovers Real meaning. Where does the meaning come from? We construct it out of available Signifiers stored in memory operating in accordance with an evolved set of Laws and Dynamics, following sometimes lightning speed dialectic, and settling at belief, also a mechanism of the Fictional structure seen by us as Truth.

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? The point is that us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again. — Philosophim

That's not the point at issue, though. Obviously there is massive divergences between species, that is not at issue. I am protesting the tendency to overlook or deny what I see as an obvious fact about h. sapiens - language, reason, tool-making, and the implications of all of that. No, we're not 'an alien species', the biological descent of h. sapiens is abundantly obvious, but with the advent of those capacities, we crossed a threshold beyond what can be understood solely through the lens of biological science.

Right?? Lol

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? The point is that us being a 'different kind' from other animals is simply the same pattern repeated in nature again and again. — Philosophim

The intellectual gap between any two species of animal may be a gap of degree along a spectrum. I don't know what differences of type they're might be. I suppose there could be differences of type between, for example, an animal that does not have neurons, and an animal that does. Although I guess it's possible that it's the same type of thinking, just done more efficiently. I just don't know enough about the subject.

I don't need to know much about the subject to know that the intellectual gap between humans and any other species may be of degree in some ways, but there is also a difference of type. No other species has the slightest clue about what stars are, ever wonders about it, or coyotes be educated aboutit. No other species wonders what fossils are, or would no matter how hard we tried to teach them. Much less radiometric dating.

How many dolphins get fishing line caught on their dorsal fin, which works it's way through, horrifyingly, severing the fin. As smart as dolphins are, they don't help each other in these situations, putting a sharp rock or shell in their mouth and cutting the line, helping it maneuver so that the line gets caught on something so it snaps, or whatever.

There is no end to the examples of things we do easily that no other species any condition of. no, we are not from a different planet. But we are different. We are unique.

That's not the point at issue, though. Obviously there is massive divergences between species, that is not at issue. I am protesting the tendency to overlook or deny what I see as an obvious fact about h. sapiens - language, reason, tool-making, and the implications of all of that. — Wayfarer

I don't believe I'm denying how unique we are, or that we are at the pinnacle of intelligence for living beings.

No, we're not 'an alien species', the biological descent of h. sapiens is abundantly obvious, but with the advent of those capacities, we crossed a threshold beyond what can be understood solely through the lens of biological science. — Wayfarer

What threshold is this that is unique to human beings? There are limits to our current understanding of many other beings through the lens of biological science as well. We can analyze the brain of a fly, but we can't duplicate it or have a full understanding of how it works. Then there's behavioral science for creatures as well that goes beyond biology.

I don't need to know much about the subject to know that the intellectual gap between humans and any other species may be of degree in some ways, but there is also a difference of type. — Patterner

Both the degree and type of intelligence shift between a dolphin and a plain fish is monumental.

No other species has the slightest clue about what stars are, ever wonders about it, or coyotes be educated aboutit. No other species wonders what fossils are, or would no matter how hard we tried to teach them. — Patterner

And nothing I've stated denies this.

There is no end to the examples of things we do easily that no other species any condition of. no, we are not from a different planet. But we are different. We are unique. — Patterner

Many species are different and unique. My point is that our differences and uniqueness do not set us apart from nature. We are just another species. We are not exempt from needing to eat, drink, reproduce, and die. We are made out of carbon and DNA. We are not the only beings with consciousness. We are mammals, and have mammalian brains. Being the pinnacle of something does not mean you are not built upon the things that let you rise to the top.

What threshold is this that is unique to human beings? — Philosophim

As I said - language, reason, technology, and so on. H. sapiens is able to interrogate the nature of meaning and being in a way that other species cannot.

We are just another species — Philosophim

You're familiar with the term 'biological reductionism'? Definition here.

Based on overwhelmingly extant physical evidence, every mind(ing) is embodied in an ecologically situated, or conditioned, brain; other than subjective anecdotes (corroborated only in folk psychological / spiritual terms & customs), there is not any publicly demonstrable, contrary evidence of (e.g.) 'disembodied cognition' or 'nonphysical minds'. — 180 Proof

Your point sounds like mind is subjective in nature as well as objective in its capabilities, which I agree. But do you agree that mind can see things beyond what is visible?

Also, assuming 'mind-body duality' is incoherent for some reasons discussed in this old post ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/636391 — 180 Proof

This thread is not exactly about mind-body duality or dualism.

Is this the end of physicalism?
No. — 180 Proof

Why?

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain. — Philosophim

So, what different material is mind of AI? In what sense is mind of AI different from human mind?

You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel. — Philosophim

I am not sure if this is a proper comparison. Mind has its own will, volition, intentions and desires as well as emotions, feelings, perceptions and reasonings. It is a totality of one's whole mental events and operations.

How do you play minds on different instrument? Is mind something that is clearly defined as a piece of music which has melodies and tunes? Does mind have the start and end like a piece of music?

We are more interested in finding out what is mind made of, if it is physical in its origin or something else in its origin? What is mind's scope and limitation? What is mind's capabilities? What can AI mind do where human minds cannot? and vice versa? Can mind see things beyond what is visible, hence extendable?

Here is an argument for why your brain does not ‘hallucinate’ your conscious reality.

…to perceive the world isn’t to hallucinate and get things right. To perceive is to explore the world with your sensing and moving body. — Joshs

The main problem with sensorimotor theory would be the fact that with the same input to the sense organs or sensibilities of different individuals, the behavioural and mental eventual output of the each individuals can be vastly different. And also the same behavioural output can be achieved by different sensorimotor inputs.

Another difficulty of the sensorimotor theory of mind would be, that there are many different factors which affects the state of mind. And it cannot explain most subconscious or unconscious mental events.

Perception, takes sensation and in imperceptible time displaces it with meaning. Not discovers Real meaning. Where does the meaning come from? We construct it out of available Signifiers stored in memory operating in accordance with an evolved set of Laws and Dynamics, following sometimes lightning speed dialectic, and settling at belief, also a mechanism of the Fictional structure seen by us as Truth. — ENOAH

If meanings are something that we construct ourselves from the signifiers stored in memory. and truths are a product of a belief and mechanism of the fictional structures, then how do we come to the common agreement on these values and properties. You say the memory operates in accordance with an evolved set of Laws and Dynamics, but that doesn't seem to be a warrant for the solid consistent foundation for any sort of rational and consistent universal principles, which tends to suggest the strong hint of possibility of the meanings and truths committed into unreliable relativity.

If Descarte's Real Self is an “I am,” a being within Being, unwittingly Fabricated and Fictional; and if—standing upon the shoulders of those, like Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger, recognizing the Fiction of a being within yhe being, and resolving it with not a being within, — ENOAH

Why is it Fabricated and Fictional? What is the evidence for "I am" is a fiction? Are you not you are?

The main problem with sensorimotor theory would be the fact that with the same input to the sense organs or sensibilities of different individuals, the behavioural and mental eventual output of the each individuals can be vastly different. And also the same behavioural output can be achieved by different sensorimotor inputs. — Corvus

It can’t be vastly different, because individuals are not solipsisms. Embodied and phenomenological interpretations consider the embeddedness of the embodied subject in a world of linguistic cultural practices to be of fundamental importance to the understanding of behavior.

“…intersubjective (social and cultural) factors already have an effect on our perception and understanding of the world, even in the immediacy of our embodied and instrumental copings with the environment.”(Shaun Gallagher)

Sense always co-implies body, and subjectivity belongs to intersubjectivity. Being in the world for Merleau-Ponty is occupying a position within a shared gestalt (the same world for everyone). I am primordially situated in an intersubjective world.

” My friend Paul and I point out to each other certain details of the landscape; and Paul's finger, which is pointing out the church tower, is not a finger-for-me that I think of as orientated towards a church-tower-for-me, it is Paul's finger which itself shows me the tower that Paul sees, just as, conversely, when I make a movement towards some point in the landscape that I can see, I do not imagine that I am producing in Paul, in virtue of some pre-established harmony, inner visions merely analogous to mine: I believe, on the contrary, that my gestures invade Paul's world and guide his gaze. When I think of Paul, I do not think of a flow of private sensations indirectly related to mine through the medium of interposed signs, but of someone who has a living experience of the same world as mine, as well as the same history, and with whom I am in communication through that world and that history.

“ In the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my thought and his are inter-woven into a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called forth by the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a shared operation of which neither of us is the creator. We have here a dual being, where the other is for me no longer a mere bit of behavior in my transcendental field, nor I in his; we are collaborators for each other in consummate reciprocity. Our perspectives merge into each other, and we co-exist through a common world. In the present dialogue, I am freed from myself, for the other person's thoughts are certainly his; they are not of my making, though I do grasp them the moment they come into being, or even anticipate them. And indeed, the objection which my interlocutor raises to what I say draws from me thoughts which I had no idea I possessed, so that at the same time that I lend him thoughts, he reciprocates by making me think too. It is only retrospectively, when I have withdrawn from the dialogue and am recalling it that I am able to reintegrate it into my life and make of it an episode in my private history”.
(Phenomenology of Perception, p.471).

Another difficulty of the sensorimotor theory of mind would be, that there are many different factors which affects the state of mind. And it cannot explain most subconscious or unconscious mental events. — Corvus

It explains them differently than a psychoanalytic model of the unconscious.

“From the point of view of a phenomenology of the lived body, the unconscious is not an intrapsychic reality residing in the depths "below consciousness". Rather, it surrounds and permeates conscious life, just as in picture puzzles the figure hidden in the background surrounds the foreground, and just as the lived body conceals itself while functioning. Unconscious fixations are like certain restrictions in a person's space of potentialities produced by an implicit but ever-present past which declines to take part in the continuing progress of life. (Thomas Fuchs)

Both the degree and type of intelligence shift between a dolphin and a plain fish is monumental. — Philosophim

As I said, I don't know anything about this. Would you know what type of intelligence a dolphin has that a fish doesn't? They certainly seem to have more personality.

And nothing I've stated denies this.

Being the pinnacle of something does not mean you are not built upon the things that let you rise to the top. — Philosophim

You said we're just part of the pattern. But we are unique in these ways. What pattern is uniqueness a part of? I don't know how you will answer about the dolphins and fish. However, since dolphins are not descended from fish, I guess it's possible that there is nothing unique about dolphins. Maybe there is a step-by-step explanation for the difference between the two animals.

However, our abilities seem to be unique. There's no gradual process from the closest thing to us to us. It's a leap of incredible significance.

Obviously, we are from there same planet. We're a result of a lot of the same materials and forces as every other animal and living thing. Our neo-cortex is not unique. All mammals have it. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees. So I'm not sure what my point is. :lol:

Obviously, we are from there same planet. We're a result of a lot of the same materials and forces as every other animal and living thing. Our neo-cortex is not unique. All mammals have it. We share 98.8% of our DNA with chimpanzees. So I'm not sure what my point is. :lol: — Patterner

Ha ha! That's fair. I'm not sure where the disagreement was either. :D

What threshold is this that is unique to human beings?
— Philosophim

As I said - language, reason, technology, and so on. H. sapiens is able to interrogate the nature of meaning and being in a way that other species cannot. — Wayfarer

My point was there there are other thresholds in other living beings that biological science cannot fully explain at this time.

You're familiar with the term 'biological reductionism'? Definition here. — Wayfarer

No, and I'm not sure how it fits into the discussion.

By the fact it is not the same material as a brain.
— Philosophim
So, what different material is mind of AI? In what sense is mind of AI different from human mind? — Corvus

For one its binary programming. It has different limitations and freedoms from neurological thinking. You can scale an AI to use far more energy than one human brain, as well as transfer information from one hardware station to another.

You can play the same melody on different instruments, but it will have its own sound and feel.
— Philosophim
I am not sure if this is a proper comparison. Mind has its own will, volition, intentions and desires as well as emotions, feelings, perceptions and reasonings. It is a totality of one's whole mental events and operations. — Corvus

Right, that's its own sound and feel. Is your brain the same as your friend's brain? No. You're each different people playing your own version of music or 'mind'.

We are more interested in finding out what is mind made of, if it is physical in its origin or something else in its origin? What is mind's scope and limitation? What is mind's capabilities? What can AI mind do where human minds cannot? and vice versa? Can mind see things beyond what is visible, hence extendable? — Corvus

We've had the solution for a while now. The animalistic mind is formed from neurons. I tell people this all the time: philosophy of the mind without neuroscience is worthless. Neuroscience has answered most of those questions for some time now. 'You' are and expression of your brain. Your feelings to the matter are irrelevant. If we damage your brain, we will damage your 'consciousness'. We can use drugs to inhibit and improve your mind. And if we kill your brain, your mind dies. Its incontrovertible at this point.

You may be confusing 'sight' by the way. Sight is always a construction of the brain. Did you know that when light enters your eyes the image is upside down? The brain corrects all of that. Again, do not study philosophy to learn about the mind. Study modern day neuroscience. Anyone who doesn't is going to be ignorant.

Perception, therefore, isn’t online hallucination; it’s sensorimotor engagement with the world.

This seems to entirely miss the point. Perception may well be sensorimotor engagement. Experience is absolutely not, and suggestions that it is seem to fly in the face of every position except naive Realism.
The experience of an orange (sight, touch, taste etc...) does not consist in the sensorimotor engagement. It consists in some secondary, brain-generated imagining. So, I don't think the quoted passage quite addresses the issue at hand (re: the previous poster) while outlining an important way in whcih we need to understand our data input.

We aren’t dreaming machines but imaginative beings. We don’t hallucinate at the world; we imaginatively perceive it.

This seems to pretend that "imaginatively perceive' is not the same as 'hallucinate'. Perhaps not a 1:1, but it is extremely close. I guess the difference is that in a True Hallucination there is no "real world" input, but in general perception there is. I'm unsure that Picasso and Caravaggio can be considered to be doing the same 'imagining'.

New muscle stimulates CNS growth in the brain as well. — Vaskane

So do magic mushrooms ;)

Ha ha! That's fair. I'm not sure where the disagreement was either. :D — Philosophim

I guess it's this:

But you understood the point that the intellectual gap between a bat and a fly is as wide as the intellectual gap of a human and a bat right? — Philosophim

Whatever the gap between fly and bat is, I don't think it approaches the gap between bat and human. I don't think the gap between ameba and chimpanzee approaches the gap between chimpanzee and human. I think the intelligence of everything other than us helps them operate in their ecological niche, so they can survive and reproduce. The intellectual approach some species take are more complex than others. Still, survival and reproduction are what their intelligence is about.

Humans intelligence goes indescribably far beyond that of any other species. We think about things no other species thinks about. Things no other species can think about. Thinking about thinking. About the self. About existence and nonexistence. About - and sometimes purposely about - things that have no bearing on survival or reproduction, or any practical application. No other creature can even conceive of the idea of a telescope, much less build one and rocket it into orbit so it will get a clearer picture outside of the Earth's atmosphere. No other creature is capable of causing an extinction level event. We could make a list of mile long. And I don't mean things we do better than any other species, but things no other species does at all.

Aside from humans, what species has types of intelligence that no other species has? Even if there are different types of intelligence out there in the animal kingdom, there is no other unique type of intelligence aside from the types we have. I think that's far more significant than the difference between a fly and a bat.

:clap: :ok:

You're familiar with the term 'biological reductionism'? Definition here.
— Wayfarer

No, and I'm not sure how it fits into the discussion. — Philosophim

Because it is what you're appealing to by declaring that humans are 'just another species' and that the differences between humans and other species is no more significant than the differences between species, generally. The definition I linked to was as follows:

Biological reductionism: A theoretical approach that aims to explain all social or cultural phenomena in biological terms, denying them any causal autonomy. Twentieth-century incarnations of biological reductionism have relied to varying degrees on Darwin's theory of evolution and principles of natural selection. Within the human sciences, there have been attempts to explain observed differences in group behaviour—such as performance on intelligence tests, rates of mental illness, intergenerational poverty, male dominance or patriarchy, and propensity for crime—as being biologically determined, by claiming that groups have different biological capacities or evolutionary trajectories. The theories of Social Darwinism, eugenics, and sociobiology often involve biological reductionism. A recognition of the importance of biological conditions and human nature need not involve biological reductionism.

Whatever the gap between fly and bat is, I don't think it approaches the gap between bat and human. — Patterner

Its not about a specific measurement of the gap, its about the fact that the gap is a wide gulf between the two. A mammal can run intellectual circles around a bug. A human can run intellectual circles around a bat.

Humans intelligence goes indescribably far beyond that of any other species. We think about things no other species thinks about. Things no other species can think about. — Patterner

Right, that's the natural consequence of being the best. Just like an insect can't hope to think like a bat does, a bat can't hope to think like a human does. Are we indescribably different though? We see other forms of intelligence like apes and orangutangs. Its not like we come out of left field like its some form of magic. We're made out of DNA, we have brains that are similar to other mammals, etc.

I don't see a conflict between being the best in intellect, but also not being apart from nature and the rest of existence. A peregrine falcon can see small movement miles up the sky, and swoop up to 200 miles per hour, which seems impossible to me. Just because its the fastest animal in the world, that doesn't mean its a magical bird that's somehow separate from everything else. Nature is very weird, varied, and easily catalogued by DNA, bone structure, and clear patterns of life.

So I'll ask you, why do you think being the most intelligent being keeps us separate from nature? Why do you think it makes us anymore special then just "Being special in being the most intelligent being?"

Because it is what you're appealing to by declaring that humans are 'just another species' and that the differences between humans and other species is no more significant than the differences between species, generally. — Wayfarer

I'm feeling like you're really not committing to a discussion here, as you are disregarding all of my other points that lead to why I'm saying this. Give me some example that makes humans magic then. Are we composed of something other than DNA? Do we have some type of anatomy that seems completely alien to the planet? It has to be something more than just, "We're the most intelligent species". There is always going to be a most intelligent species, and because it is the most intelligent, it is going to be able to do things other species can't.

The definition I linked to was as follows — Wayfarer

Yes, I read the definition the first time you linked it and I still don't see how this applies. What specifically am I saying that ties in with that definition?

then how do we come to the common agreement on these values and properties — Corvus

If you're hinting that a hypothesis of Mind constructing all meaning is negated by the fact that there are universals we all agree to, that question would most potently address the issue if you're premise is that our common agreement, even respecting these so called universals, is sufficient evidence of their Truth. The fact that we already know our common agreement is not necessarily True, supports rather than negates the chance that we can and do come to common agreement on meanings which we simply constructed.

Further, your comments make sense, and I cannot fault you or your questions, there are complexities that I did not address. For instance, not only does our common agreement not negate the fact that we are agreeing upon Fiction, even in universals, but, that, I submit is one of the very ways our constructions are adopted as belief: I.e. by convention. The meanings are constructed following an autonomous process regulated by evolved Laws and dynamics, and oversimplified, what gets settled upon as believed follows criteria like functionality, Reason, convention, sometimes fantasy, like religion, hope etc. And I'll stop here, apologizing for my necessary brevity.

but that doesn't seem to be a warrant for the solid consistent foundation for any sort of rational and consistent universal principles, which tends to suggest the strong hint of possibility of the meanings and truths committed into unreliable relativity. — Corvus

Firstly, unless I've misunderstood: yes, relativity. So? But as for unreliable, no. Mind (both individual and History) tests every belief through a dialectical process. Belief is that settlement or "synthesis" which is most fitting. Even so called universals are still meanings once constructed, continuing to evolve. . The so called universal principles, are not universal. They suit only the hosts of Human Mind.

What is the evidence for "I am" is a fiction? Are you not you are? — Corvus

What is the evidence of an "I" period? Let alone an I that is, and is a Being within the being. I only is in Language. My Body provides obvious evidence of its own Reality, without the need of a Fictional construction, a nevessary mechanism in Grammar and thus Mind. That,
i.e. the human animal, ought to have been the given; the pre-reflective, a priori, noumenal, etc. Truth. Not our ideas about it. If "I" isn't the so called being requiring evidence then why is it that "I" was the Subject of Descartes inquiry. And where did he locate the "I" ? In thinking. And what structures that thinking? Language including its laws and dynamics such as grammar/logic, meaning, difference, Dialectic, convention and belief.

Apology once again for the clearly simplistic reply to your complex points on a complex matter which should take up more mental preparation/organization and space than can justify in this communal context.

The definition I linked to was as follows:

Biological reductionism: A theoretical approach that aims to explain all social or cultural phenomena in biological terms, denying them any causal autonomy. Twentieth-century incarnations of biological reductionism have relied to varying degrees on Darwin's theory of evolution and principles of natural selection. Within the human sciences, there have been attempts to explain observed differences in group behaviour—such as performance on intelligence tests, rates of mental illness, intergenerational poverty, male dominance or patriarchy, and propensity for crime—as being biologically determined, by claiming that groups have different biological capacities or evolutionary trajectories. The theories of Social Darwinism, eugenics, and sociobiology often involve biological reductionism. A recognition of the importance of biological conditions and human nature need not involve biological reductionism. — Wayfarer

There's a bit of argumentum ad odium to that definition.

One might also say, that some understanding of the way things reduce to biology is a matter or being educated.

So I'll ask you, why do you think being the most intelligent being keeps us separate from nature? — Philosophim

I don't. I think it happened through natural processes. And I think we are subject to nature.

Why do you think it makes us anymore special then just "Being special in being the most intelligent being?" — Philosophim

I don't. I just think the gap between us and any other species is greater than the gap between any other two species. By a huge amount. Because we don't just think better in the ways any other species thinks, but because we think in ways no other species thinks. And no other species thinks in ways no other species thinks.

some understanding of the way things reduce to biology is a matter or being educated. — wonderer1

A recognition of the importance of biological conditions and human nature need not involve biological reductionism. — Wayfarer

Ah I see Patterner. I don't think we have any substantial disagreement then. :)

Give me some example that makes humans magic — Philosophim

Show me where said that human beings are magic. I actually used a philosophical term to differentiate human beings from animals - can you recall what that might be, or its significance?

Give me some example that makes humans magic then
— Philosophim

Show me where said that human beings are magic. — Wayfarer

I never did. This is pointless to engage anymore Wayfarer. Lets let the thread get back to its original topic.

Sorry, mis-typed - I meant to say, show me where I said that 'humans were magic'. But I then noticed that you had said:

Humans are not some separate and magical species that exists apart from all of nature. — Philosophim

To which I replied

With the advent of language, reason and symbolic thinking, h. sapiens crosses a threshhold which marks it off from the rest of the animal kingdom. — Wayfarer

I said that this threshold corresponds to an ontological distinction - a distinction in kind - between humans and other animals.

I don't expect any agreement, but at least some clarity about the point. I believe @Patterner is arguing something similar.

Anyway, as to the question, 'does consciousness extend beyond brains?', as I've entered the fray, I will review at least some of this 2.5 hour ( :yikes: ) presentation.

Anil Seth says he's 'entirely comfortable' with 'the mind extending beyond the brain', holding up his iPhone to make the point, one I agree with. Overall, I liked Seth's presentation, although I would question his claim that 'the mystery of life' has been 'solved' due to our better understanding of organic biochemistry. It might be that we come to quite clearly understand the biochemistry of the origin of life but that doesn't necessarily mean we understand everything there is to know about the question (for instance, is there any sense, and any reason, that life evolves towards greater levels of intelligence?)
Nevertheless, I think from Seth's perspective as a cognitive scientist, most of what he says makes perfect sense, although that also points to the many meanings that 'consciousness' may have, depending on context and interpretation - he differentiates 'consciousness' and 'mind' in ways that philosophy of mind may not. (I think he very much sees consciousness in terms of 'conscious awareness'.) I also question what it would mean to 'explain' consciousness - explain it in terms of what, exactly? What are the constituents of it, such that understanding those constituents would account for the first-person nature of experience? He says that science is 'chipping away' at that issue, but it seems a category mistake in some ways.

Tanya Lurhmann is very interesting, I hadn't encountered her before. The similarities with Julian Jaynes 'bicameral mind' thesis jumped out at me. Thoughts 'cross the mind-world boundary'. She talked of the 'porosity' of the mind, that the individual mind, or some of them, have a sense of openness to other minds, or to Spirit as mind, and also that thought could 'pass into' the world. Being an anthropologist, though, she's done a lot of empirical work - questionnaires and surveys, she's reporting first-person accounts of others. Never heard of 'tulpamancy' before! Gives new meaning to the criticism that some religious people have 'invisible friends'.

Re Sheldrake, I have 'The Science Delusion' and 'Presence of the Past'. I'm probably more open to Sheldrake than many but I'm afraid most of what he has to say won't change any minds, I suspect. I will review a bit more of the Q&A later.

It can’t be vastly different, because individuals are not solipsisms. Embodied and phenomenological interpretations consider the embeddedness of the embodied subject in a world of linguistic cultural practices to be of fundamental importance to the understanding of behavior. — Joshs

Some folks are solipsistic, and some are die-hard realists. Everyone is different. Some are left and some are right. Some are neutral. Some like poetry, some like mathematics, and some science, and some like them all.

Having the same language and culture doesn't warrant the individuals have the same mind frame.
But more importantly, it doesn't explain what mind is, and how it sometimes operates in certain ways under the circumstances.

When asked, "ice-cream?" Some say "vanilla please", some say "chocolate", and some say "I hate ice cream, give me a beer."

When asked "hobbies?" Some say, football, some say running, some say reading, some say cooking ... They are all different from person to person. You may find some folks share the same ideas, feelings and preferences on certain things and situations, but you will never find 100% identical individuals in the whole world. So what does it prove about the under the same cultural and linguistic world and embodiment of bodies to minds?

It describes how some people behave in some situations, but it seems to be saying not much on what mind is, and why it operates the way it does.

Sense always co-implies body, and subjectivity belongs to intersubjectivity. Being in the world for Merleau-Ponty is occupying a position within a shared gestalt (the same world for everyone). I am primordially situated in an intersubjective world. — Joshs

Of course everyone is in their own body, and they think they are, or get told they are in an intersubjective world. But again everyone is different in the way they think, feel and behave in some sense.

It is not like the machines, which operate in the same way and manner, in the sense that if you have a computer with the same spec. of the processors, the same size of RAM and Hard Disks and the same application software running. If you had millions of identical computers running all over the world, then no matter what countries, what cities and in what location they were running, they would run exactly the same speed, same screens, and the same performance.

If a theory is only true in some cases, but not others, then is it an objective theory?

The concept of being the intersubjective world could be a myth as well. Because you will find a vast amount of folks living in the modern world complaining about being cut off from society, alienated and not able to communicate with anyone.

You read about the teenagers in Japan, who get bullied in schools and workplaces, and they often lock themselves up in their room just spending the whole life playing computer games. Here again, we see the variety of different lifestyles depending on the social and individual situations. Not everyone in the world seems to feel or believe that they are primordially in an intersubjective world interacting with the other people and the environment they are in.

It explains them differently than a psychoanalytic model of the unconscious.

“From the point of view of a phenomenology of the lived body, the unconscious is not an intrapsychic reality residing in the depths "below consciousness". Rather, it surrounds and permeates conscious life, just as in picture puzzles the figure hidden in the background surrounds the foreground, and just as the lived body conceals itself while functioning. Unconscious fixations are like certain restrictions in a person's space of potentialities produced by an implicit but ever-present past which declines to take part in the continuing progress of life. (Thomas Fuchs) — Joshs

This is an interesting account on unconscious, which can be a topic of its own. Although it sounds like a contradictory at prima facie encounter. It sounds a categorical mistake to presume that unconscious can surround and permeates conscious life as if unconscious is some sort of physical blanket or cape which drapes around the conscious life. But it could have further elaboration and arguments with the real life cases which demonstrates that unconscious is not the hidden psychic reality deep in the mind.

For one its binary programming. It has different limitations and freedoms from neurological thinking. You can scale an AI to use far more energy than one human brain, as well as transfer information from one hardware station to another. — Philosophim

So how do you know AI which has binary codes in its core thinks? Is it not the case of AI operates according to the instruction of the binary code what to execute next after checking the conditions?
What is the ground for the claim that AI also thinks as human mind does?

Right, that's its own sound and feel. Is your brain the same as your friend's brain? No. You're each different people playing your own version of music or 'mind'. — Philosophim

I am not sure if brain states of different individuals can be checked and verified as either exactly the same, or slightly different or totally different. In what sense would a brain different from the other brain?
Some mental events and operations of different people can be similar, but again could it be exactly the same? How can you claim that? Under what sense and point are they same or different?

And I am not sure if it is a coherent analogy to say that mind is something that can be played on musical instruments. Mind observes the external worlds, reflects and thinks, imagines, decides, desires, knows that, and knows how ... etc etc.

Mind is far more complicated entity which cannot be simply played in an instrument. The musician's mind knows how to play musical instruments, but mind cannot be played by an instrument either logically or literally or in reality.

You may be confusing 'sight' by the way. Sight is always a construction of the brain. Did you know that when light enters your eyes the image is upside down? The brain corrects all of that. Again, do not study philosophy to learn about the mind. Study modern day neuroscience. Anyone who doesn't is going to be ignorant. — Philosophim

Neuroscience is definitely a good tool to describe mind in certain perspectives i.e. biological and neurological point of view, and telling how some visual perception works in biological and physical way. But it is not the whole story. There are parts of mind, to which neurology is not able to give coherent explanation. For example, what is concept? How does brain generate concepts? What are the nature of ideas people have in their minds in neurological terms? Why some people prefer ice cream to tomatoes?

Seth in the youtube video presentation in the OP is a neurologist, and that is what he was saying. There are many things in mental events and operations that biology and neurology cannot explain. Mind could be a property of living life, which has been matured since birth of one's life on this earth biologically, neurologically and mentally, which also has the root of hundreds thousands years of human evolution.